91Èȱ¬

Plymouth Albion have officially unveiled former Exeter Chiefs boss Pete Drewett as their new head coach.

Drewett, who will also hold the post of director of rugby, has signed a deal at the Brickfields until 2015.

He replaces Graham Dawe who was sacked as chairman of rugby earlier this week.

"My role here is to improve players individually, improve as a unit and improve as a team and it's about being well organised both on and off the field," Drewett told 91Èȱ¬ Spotlight.

"I'll be working hard to achieve that. There are no shortcuts."

Albion chairman, Dr Graham Stirling said the decision to axe Dawe was solely down to the club's poor results.

The former England hooker had been in charge of Albion for more than 12 years and had taken Albion from the foot of the old National Three South into the second tier of English rugby.

"We've been monitoring closely our development this season, we did set our stall out to get a top-eight position in the play-off zone, ideally the top six," Stirling said.

"We just felt we got to a state where we were 10 points adrift of the play-offs and it was time to take some action."

Drewett was and since then has coached the England Students team and pursued business interests outside rugby.

He paid tribute to his predecessor, acknowledging the work he had done to bring Albion up the the standard they are currently at but his is keen to improve the club further.

"Graham first and foremost has brought a massive amount to Plymouth and has a fantastic legacy and there are loads of players all over the country who owe a lot to Graham," he said.

"When you're an ambitious club you have to win and you're expected to win.

"That means the pressure is on, as it should be, to perform at the highest level."

Drewett has a tough start to his Albion career. His side face four of the top five sides in the Championship in the next four league games.

"It's a good place to start because if you actually want to win things those are the challenges you have to face straight on and assess yourself at that level," he continued.

"We've got three or four days now before the start of our campaign, and that's what I've told the players," he added.